Aphidicolin is an antimitotic and antiviral mold metabolite produced by Cephalosporium aphidicola. It strongly inhibits the growth of herpes simplex virus both in tissue culture and in the rabbit eye, and does not induce formation of drug resistant strains. Structurally, aphidicolin belongs to a new skeletal type of diterpenes. We have recently succeeded in carrying out a total synthesis of this molecule. During the next year we will continue our work toward improving the overall synthetic sequence and toward obtaining synthetic analogues of aphidicolin for biological testing.